Discovering Cinema's Secrets Step By Step

Choose them (and I will list them when I've watched them). It makes it a little more flexible and it gives people the opportunity to send me recommendations from the directors/actors/etc. I'm currently doing.

I already have Topsy-Turvy and Secrets & Lies ready to watch, though, so those two will probably be part of it.

I'll probably start with Vera Drake and Mr. Turner, only because I own those.

I'm also interested in Mr. Turner.

I'll post my two other director choices tomorrow. We'll see.

Off to bed now. I actually have to give a presentation tomorrow.

Good night!

Probably won't be for a week or two, but we have two months so maybe i'll post during the lull of you guys posts. Going to watch Happy-Go-Lucky first.

Let me know the Leigh movies you guys are watching. I will try and participate.

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Letterboxd

Jean Renoir
Thought The Rules of the Game was decent, didn't like The River, and will be watching French Cancan soon.

Edward Yang
Haven't seen any yet, but I have A Brighter Summer Day on my watchlist.

Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Seen none of his.

Alejandro Jodorowsky
Didn't like The Holy Mountain or El Topo, but will be watching the latter again soon.

Eric Rohmer
I liked Claire's Knee, My Night at Maud's, and La Collectionneuse

Guy Maddin
I voted for My Winnipeg for the docs countdown.

Kenji Mizoguchi
Sansho the Bailiff was excellent, and I have 3 of his other movies on my 50's watchlist.

Masaki Kobayashi
Absolutely love Samurai Rebellion and Harakiri, The Human Condition trilogy is excellent, and Kwaidan was ok.

Satyajit Ray
Love The Apu Trilogy and The Big City, and thought Charulata was decent. Watching The Music Room soon.

Claude Chabrol
Enjoyed Le Boucher.

Luchino Visconti
Watching Senso soon, but The Leopard was a tough watch for me.

Jules Dassin
Rififi was excellent and I liked Night and the City.

Sergei M. Eisenstein
Will be watching Ivan the Terrible I and II soon.

Jean Cocteau
Will watch Orpheus for the 50's.

H.G. Clouzot
Liked Wages of Fear and Diabolique.

Béla Tarr
Didn't mind Werckmeister Harmonies, but The Turin Horse was a tough one.

Agnès Varda
Liked Le Bonheur and Cleo from 5 to 7.

Josef von Sternberg
Nothing for me yet.

Alain Resnais
Loved Night and Fog and Hiroshima Mon Amour, but didn't care for Last Year at Marienbad.

Sam Peckinpah
Love Straw Dogs and The Wild Bunch, like Alfredo Garcia, The Getaway and Convoy, and thought Major Dundee, Ride the High Country, and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid were just ok.

Carl Theodor Dreyer
Loved Ordet

Mario Bava
Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, Bay of Blood, Lisa and the Devil all ok to good.

Nicolas Roeg
Loved Walkabout and Don't Look Now, and thought Performance and The Man Who Fell from Earth were decent.

Takeshi Kitano
Liked Sonatine, plan on seeing Outrage.

Ken Loach
Loved Sweet Sixteen and Kes.

Seijun Suzuki
Liked Tokyo Drifter, Branded to Kill, and Gate of Flesh.

My director to look into-Ben Wheatley.

This was my 10000th post haha

I'd back Camo's suggestion of Shane Meadows, but watch them in order he made them in (as much as you can find them) . There's a nice sense of honing his craft in the progression as well as seeing actors he's used a lot grow up

Also , All Or Nothing is up there with my favourite Mike Leigh films. It's a portrait of a marriage under the mental stress of poverty, the difficulties of their teenage kids, and just the familiarity with which we pass everyday without telling people we love them. It's bleak.

Jean Renoir - La Grande Illusion
Satyajit Ray - Pather Panchali
Jules Dassin - Never On Sunday
Sam Peckinpah - The Getaway
Carl Theodor Dreyer - Gertrud
Ken Loach - Cathy Come Home
Mike Leigh - Life Is Sweet

OK. Next to Mike Leigh, I'm going to focus on three other directors during this period. They are:

Jean Renoir



Probably one of the most respected filmmakers of all time. It's a shame I haven't seen anything from him yet. I'll try to see three (or hopefully more) of his films before the deadline.

Seijun Suzuki



I'm just attracted to this guy, somehow. I'll try to see three of his films as well (if I'm able to find them)! Haven't seen any of his films so far...

Louis Malle



I've seen two of his films already, Atlantic City and My Dinner with Andre, which I both really loved. I want to see three more films of his (at least) before the deadline.

IF I'd watch a film from any other director on the list in the first post or a director that suddenly starts to capture my interest, I also won't hesitate to write a little bit about it here.

I would recommend Tetsuya Nakashima as a great example of great contemporary Japanese live action. Sion Sono Is another great example of current asian live action.

I've heard of both directors but haven't seen any of their films yet. Thanks for reminding me of them, Guap! I've added them to my list. They seem like fun directors to discover (especially Sion Sono ).

Just to prove to you all that this won't be a pretentious thread:

The first two films from the MoFo Documentary List that I'm going to check out and write about here are the Jackass films on it.

I've watched the TV series when I was smaller, so I already know the crew quite a bit, but I don't think I've ever seen one of their films in full.

I'm going to watch the first one right now!

They're actually pretty fun. I just thought it was hilarious how SC reacted to J2ckass .

So I watched three films for my challenge yesterday:

First I watched Jackass: The Movie and Jackass Number Two.

After all these years, I still can't help enjoying these guys doing all kinds of crazy and stupid stuff. Many of the clips in the films I recognized and have seen somewhere before (probably on TV, running into one of the two films), but there were some interesting new surprises that I didn't remember, like for instance the musical scene at the end of Number Two, which was great fun.

Coincidentally, I was binge-watching some Louis C.K. interviews a few weeks ago (as I'm a huge fan of his, as some people here might know) and he was in the studio with Johnny Knoxville himself, talking about how much he loves Jackass.
Here's a short fragment of it:



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Then, deep at night, I decided to watch my first Suzuki film! I went with Tokyo Drifter (1966)



This is exactly the kind of film that I love. It's highly stylized, continuously entertaining and it clearly doesn't really care that much about the logic of its plot at all. Everything Suzuki does here is in service of the film's style and the film's entertainment value.
The reason why I really adore this film, though, is because it doesn't only consider action as entertainment (although there's a lot of cool action in it it), but it also considers genuine emotions and close moments with the characters as important. An audience can't be fully entertained if it isn't involved emotionally with a film and that's where a lot of today's entertainment falls flat for me.

Tokyo Drifter is admittedly a bit campy at times and its style is really predominant during certain moments, but during all of this, the film never loses its heart for its main character (and some side characters as well). We really get a sense of what "living as a drifter" means to him.

Very satisfied with this director choice so far! Feel free to express your own thoughts about some of the films I watched here. As most of you know, I love a good discussion about cinema.

So, I've completed my Louis Malle goal about two days ago, but I still want to see one or two more of his pictures before I write a piece on him here (I definitely still want to see Au Revoir les Enfants, which might be his most acclaimed film).

I'm also planning on watching some more Fritz Lang in the upcoming days and weeks. I've only seen two films out of his rich filmography so far (M and Scarlet Street, which are both brilliant movies), so there's much room for improvement.
I'm definitely planning on watching The Woman in the Window, The Big Heat and of course Metropolis. Any other recommendations are welcome!

I just watched this interview with him, which inspired me to delve into his work a little deeper:

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Cobpyth's Movie Log ~ 2019

I was looking for some more interesting directors that I hadn't seen anything from yet (who weren't mentioned in the first post) and I came up with these four:

Mikio Naruse
Zhangke Jia
Michael Haneke
Hirokazu Koreeda
Apichatpong Weerasethakul

If anyone has some experiences with any of these, feel free to share!